Pint-sized Martha Quinn Is A Growing Presence On Mtv

April 21, 1985|By Debbi del Condo, Special to The Sentinel

NEW YORK — There are two '80s icons in the room: a huge MTV logo in four shades of neon, and a tiny Martha Quinn in scrappy sneakers, jeans and a red V-neck sweater. She has been up since 6:30 a.m., has just finished taping her next- day show, and is excited about going to a Julian Lennon concert that evening. Martha Quinn, if you happen to be vitamin-MTV deficient, is the superstar video-jockey of cable's rock-video channel, MTV. She shares her job with four other veejays, but she's the one who appears during East Coast prime time, 6-11 p.m. weekdays.

If you tell her that she's the biggest thing on MTV, she'll thank you, and then deny it. Then, she mentions the Saturday Night Live parody of USA for Africa's video for ''We Are the World'' -- ''They did Mark Goodman another MTV veejay on Saturday Night Live! I missed it!''

It sounds as if she's not as sorry about missing the spoof as she is about missing the SNL sendup of an MTV personality. And I can't help but wonder if there's just a tinge of jealousy that it was Goodman, not Quinn, who merited the impersonation.

Quinn, who will be 26 on May 11, has been with MTV since it first aired in 1981. With previous experience in radio and TV commercials, she got the job as veejay the best way you can: She knew somebody who knew somebody.

A friend at radio station WNBC, where Quinn had interned, urged her to call Robert Pittman, who had left WNBC to launch his brainchild, MTV.

She auditioned, was offered the job on a Thursday, and started work the next day. ''Nobody knew what MTV would be, but if Bob left his job at WNBC to start it, we all knew it must be something,'' she says.

Has ''Music TV'' evolved into ''Martha TV''?

Well, Quinn is reluctant to be called the star of the channel. She modestly sidesteps a question about why her shift was swapped with that of veejay J.J. Jackson a couple of years ago, giving her the most widely viewed time slot.

Her apparent prominence on the show is an East Coast phenomenon, she says. In California, Nina Blackwood is the star. Other time zones see other veejays during their own prime times, she insists, forgetting the fact that even on the West Coast she's seen during the crucial after-school hours of 3 to 8 p.m. In addition, Quinn was chosen to co-host this year's ''ON CABLE Awards'' ceremony. She says there also have been offers of other ''things,'' but refuses to be specific other than the fact that she'd consider making a video ''if the right one came along.''

It would, Quinn says, take a lot to lure her away from MTV.

Time to clear up a rumor. Has she ever been in a video?

''I know, I know!'' She cracks up over a gossiped-about appearance in the J. Geils Band's ''Centerfold'' video. ''That's not me. When I had my other haircut, I looked just like her. Except she's enormous.''

Haircuts have been about the only cosmetic changes for Quinn in the last four years. (''Hey, I lost 15 pounds!'' she says by way of correction.) Are there management guidelines for maintaining a safe-for-Peoria image?

''No, this is just the way I look. If I came in with purple spiky hair, I might hear something about it, but it's not going to be a problem, that's just not me.''

She claims to be pretty much the same person on or off the air, noting that by not playing a different role on the air, much of the job pressure vanishes. Quinn characterizes the various personalities of the five veejays in terms of a list of publications, describing herself as Teen Beat. J.J. Jackson is the Encyclopedia of Rock 'n' Roll; Nina Blackwood is Glamour magazine; Alan Hunter, GQ; Mark Goodman, Creem magazine.

While conscious of her spunky television image, she dreads lapsing into a perky cliche of herself. ''I've done commercials, I've done Chicken McNuggets, Clearasil. . . . I have to be careful not to always play the cheerful commercial personality.''

Quinn lives in New York City's Greenwich Village, close enough to fellow veejay Alan Hunter to pick him up on the way to work if need be, in a company- chartered limo. She says she doesn't get recognized much on the street: ''I'm so small 5-foot-1, I guess people don't expect that.''

What about boyfriends? She crinkles up into a little blush-ball, knees under chin, and says, ''Well . . . yes and no. On and off. You could say I have lots of headaches.''

Would it be a secret if any of the veejays happened to be married? She casts a quick glance at the press-relations representative from MTV who has been on hand throughout our conversation. No, not a secret. Alan, Mark and J.J. are married. ''All the men. Sorry, girls.''

During MTV's promotion of a 1983 concert tour by the Police, Quinn appeared frequently on the air with guitarist Andy Summers. But she says there was no romance.

She introduced shows on the Police concert tour, Orlando being one of the stops.

''Oh, yes, the Tangerine Bowl now Orlando Stadium. Hey, I've been in Orlando more recently than that.'' She breaks into a chorus of ''Happy, happy birthday Donald Duck.''

Her memories of Orlando are right on the money: ''Laundry World, Have-A- Glass-of-Beer World . . . ''

Back to Video World. She says her favorite video is a performance clip of ''Lucille,'' by the impromptu superstar band Rockestra headed by Paul McCartney. ''It's a slice of rock 'n' roll history, seeing all those greats on one stage. They're really wailing in that one.''

Quinn describes videos as an art form. When they make videos, musicians are expressing themselves visually, she says, citing a pair of arty black-and- white efforts, one by Don Henley and one by the Police.

''Visual hooks,'' she says, are what make videos good -- ''things that your eye is attracted to. Like in Hall and Oates' 'Private Eyes,' where they clap their hands and there's a simultaneous flash of light.''